Greetings All, Gita, Chapter # 2, Samkhya Yoga: Swamiji starts off by reminding us that Arjuna expresses his helplessness and surrenders to Sri Krishna and requests him to teach. Sri Krishna accepts Arjuna as a student and starts teaching him the Gita. The teaching begins from Shloka 11 of Chapter 2 and continues till Shloka […]
Greetings All, Gita, Chapter # 2, Samkhya Yoga: Swamiji starts off by reminding us that Vyasa now presents Arjuna as a seeker of moksha. The fundamental human problem characterized by Raga (Likes), Dvesha (Dislikes) and Moha (delusion) is also called Samsara. Due to attachment, when we lose a person or an object, it causes us […]
Greetings All, Swamiji continued his talks on Prasna Upanishad. Second Question, Shloka # 7: Swamiji says all mantras from #5 to # 13 are all Prana Devata Sruthi or praise. Glorification is done at both Subjective (Adhyathmika) level as well as Objective ( Adhi Daivika) level. Prana is the Shakthi animating the ten gyanendriyas such […]
Lecture 11 Notes : Bhagavad Gita Chapter 1 Summary 1/09/16 Swamiji gives a Summary of Chapter 1 and an Introduction to Chapter 2. Summary of Chapter 1 To live a healthy life – consider these 2 factors: 1. The surroundings should be hygienic so that it doesn’t cause diseases. This is an external factor; objective […]
Namaste: This are my notes from New Year talk given by Swamiji on January 1, 2016: You can listen to this talk here. The topic of this talk was six principles of tolerance. Swamiji started the talk by pointing out that the topic of tolerance is in the news now a days and that both Tatva […]
Bagawat Geeta Class 8 Namaste! Summary of class on December 19th: Verses 29-34 continues with Arjuna’s emotion of shOka (sorrow) and VyAsa here wants to show the intensity of the sorrow. Arjuna is describing how he is physically affected (limbs drooping, mouth drying up, body trembling, hairs standing, the Gandiva slipping, skin on fire, mind […]
I had difficulty in comprehending and digesting this class and summarized as best as I can. I greatly appreciate any corrections, additions and comments to my summary. In the last class, Swamiji stated that Rayee is a non translatable word. For my own sake of understanding this Upsanishad, I equate Rayee to matter and Prana […]
Greetings All, Swamiji continued his talks on Prasna Upanishad. Shloka # 1: Refreshing our memory on Shloka 1, he says, this Upanishad begins with an introduction of Guru and Shishyas. It is similar to other Upanishads. The six qualified students are named and described. The way they were qualified is as follows: They were committed […]
Greetings All, Swamiji continued with his discussion of the invocation prayer called Gitagyana Shloka. Madhusudhana Saraswathi wrote this Shloka. While this shloka was not originally a part of Gita, it is now accepted as one. The Gitagyana Shloka has nine verses. In these Shlokas we are offering namaskara to: Bharathi, Gita/ Saraswathi, Vyasa and Lord […]
On November 8, 2015, the Vedantic Study Group of HTGC started to listen to Prasna Upanishad by Swami Paramarthananda. Swamiji started the class with the meaning of Vedanta: Vedantaha: Because this comes at the end portion of vedas, brahma vidhya because this deals with the knowledge of Brahman gyana kandaha: In this part of vedas […]